By Jane Bokun
Throughout my 40s and 50s, I usually walked around with a huge mass on my leg.
People pointed it out so much I went to a doctor thinking it was a tumor.
“What do you think it is?” I asked my doctor.
“It’s fat,” he said. “It’s fat.”
“Fat?” I said.
“Fat,” he said.
The truth was I knew it was unsightly. I had taken to wearing boots even when the weather was milder. Besides the fat tumor, my legs looked like a purple map of the universe. But there was another thing, they were in pain. There was pain in my legs every day and when that wasn’t happening, my legs and feet were itching.
My most fervent wish was to get my varicose veins done and I heard it was covered by insurance. I quickly signed up at one of the vein clinics and got ready for the treatments.
They included a sonogram of both legs which had varicose (thick, bluish, itchy) veins. After the sonogram, I met with the doctor and his technician to do a vein ablation. It consisted of targeting a large vein to shrink with a heated laser. Afterwards, a few bandages and a 30-minute walk around the office were all I needed. Before the heat laser procedure, there was an anesthetic put on my leg for any pain. I have to say it wasn’t very painful. Each leg was done on separate days.
Now my legs no longer itch, and I’ve been able to ditch the boots in summer. As with all things, I wonder why I didn’t do vein ablation earlier.
